Lotus Alpine Adventures is pleased to offer small group, custom and private, avalanche education courses for 2020 on Vail Pass, CO for select pre-set dates and custom dates on request. All courses will be lead by longtime avalanche educator, avalanche forecaster, ski patroller, ski guide, and IFMGA mountain guide….Jayson Simons-Jones. Jayson has made a career […]
The Positive Power Of Belief…
#tbt to this date in 2004. I was lying in a hospital bed post-op in the Denver Spine Center surgery unit, having just undergone a few different orthopaedic spinal surgery procedures for some severely herniated discs and some subsequent nerve damage. That morning, I was wheeled into the operating room in a wheelchair. I couldn’t […]
Successful Inaugural Iceland Ski & Sail Expedition…
This Spring marked an exciting ‘first’ for Lotus Alpine Adventures, as we embarked with a crew of four guests on a very unique and exotic ski mountaineering expedition to the Westfjords region of extreme NW Iceland, for a week of skiing in the Hornstradir Nature Reserve aboard the 98-year old wooden oak sailing ship, the Donna Wood of North Sailing Husavik.
The Westfjords region of Iceland is incredibly beautiful and also incredibly remote. Deep fjords cut into the mountainous landscape here making each valley and village feel extremely isolated, while the topography of the land makes for endless couloirs and interesting ski terrain to be explored, beginning just steps from the shores of the Arctic Ocean. It’s combination of raw and intense beauty, extreme weather (which we experienced quite a lot of), and remoteness was outdone only by the genuine and welcoming hospitality from the Icelandic people that dwell here, where they’ve lived for generations among this tiny corner of one of the world’s most isolated islands.
Ski Mountaineering Trip to Alaska’s Thompson Pass
As the ski season winds down in the Elk Mountains of Colorado, and Spring makes it’s arrival on the calendar, so lies the time for the annual pilgrimage to a special and favorite ski destination of mine….the Chugach Mountains of Alaska’s Thompson Pass.
This year’s trip, run for Irwin Guides, marked my 8th consecutive Spring of ski guiding in this wondrous and vast mountainous and glaciated terrain that holds such a unique place in the hearts and minds of backcountry ski and ski mountaineering aficionados from around the world.
Alaska’s mountains are big. The terrain is big, the scale hard to gauge and comprehend, and the snow is incredible….smooth, consistent, and reliably good. This year was no different, and in the end, it was unfortunate that only 1 week and 1 trip was spent here in this mecca, where a lifetime of ski lines awaits.
